It was also part of the Median, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Ayyubid, Seljuk, Mongol, Timurid, Safavid, Afsharid and Ottoman empires. Iraq was the centre of the Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian empires. The area has been home to successive civilisations since the 6th millennium BC. It was here that mankind first began to read, write, create laws and live in cities under an organised government-notably Uruk, from which 'Iraq' is derived.

The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, historically known as Mesopotamia. These rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of fertile land. Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf. Iraq has a coastline measuring 58 km (36 miles) on the northern Persian Gulf and encompasses the Mesopotamian Alluvial Plain, the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range and the eastern part of the Syrian Desert. The ' Cradle of Civilization' is a common term for the area comprising modern Iraq as it was home to the earliest known civilisation, the Sumerian civilisation. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish while other recoginzed regional languages include English, Neo-Aramaic, Turkish and Armenian language.

Around 95% of the country's 40 million citizens are Muslims, with minorities of Christians, Yarsans, Yezidis and Mandaeans also present.

Iraq is home to diverse ethnic groups including Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians/Chaldeans, Yazidis, Persians, Shabakis, Armenians, Sabian-Mandaeans, Circassians, and Kawliya. Iraq ( Arabic: الْعِرَاق‎, romanized: al-ʿIrāq Kurdish: عێراق‎, romanized: Êraq), officially the Republic of Iraq ( Arabic: جُمْهُورِيَّة ٱلْعِرَاق‎ Jumhūriīyah al-ʿIrāq Kurdish: کۆماری عێراق‎, romanized: Komarî Êraq), is a country in Western Asia, bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Jordan to the southwest, Syria to the west, Kuwait to the southeast and Saudi Arabia to the south.

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